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Giro d'Italia Stage 3: Marcel Kittel beats Ben Swift to win in Dublin

Giant-Shimano rider celebrates 26th birthday in style, Michael Matthews of Orica-GreenEdge keeps race lead

Marcel Kittel of Giant-Shimano, who celebrates his 26th birthday today, gave everything he had to pip Team Sky's Ben Swift to win Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia in Dublin this afternoon, with Cannondale's Elia Viviani finishing third. Michael Matthews of Orica-GreenEdge remains in the race lead.

Swift, who had needed to battle back from a puncture with around 23km remaining of the stage from Armagh, had got a terrific leadout from Edvald Boassold Hagen as the peloton became strung out in the final kilomeetre due to a series of tight corners as the race headed across the River Liffey.

But Kittel, winner yesterday in Belfast and wearing the red points jersey today, managed to overhaul the Yorkshireman, still looking for his first Grand Tour stage win, on the line, the extent of the Giant-Shimano rider's effort clear afterwards as he lay on the road, spent.

It was another wet and windy day as the race headed south across the border from Armagh to Dublin, though the sun was out towards the end of the stage, and once again the weather did not deter big crowds from turning out along the 187km route.

For the second day running, Belkin’s Maarten Tjallingi was in the break and the Dutch rider crested both of today’s Category 4 climbs – tackled early on at 23.2km and 51km – first to consolidate his lead in the mountains competition.

Joining Tjallingi in the break were Androni Giocattoli’s Yonder Godoy, Colombia’s MigueRubiano, Lotto-Belisol’s  Gert Dockx and Giorgio Cecchinel of Neri Sottoli-Yellow Fluo.

The last of the escapees to be brought back was Cechinel with 7 kilometres remaining to the finish in Dublin’s Merrion Square.

Tomorrow sees an unusually early rest day to allow the race to transfer back to Italy, where it will resume on Tuesday with a flat stage from Giovinazzo to Bari in the southern region of Puglia on the Adriatic Coast.o

Reaction to follow.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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3 comments

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dodgyrog | 9 years ago
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Any chance you could keep results spoilers out of the home page headlines.

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giobox replied to dodgyrog | 9 years ago
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dodgyrog wrote:

Any chance you could keep results spoilers out of the home page headlines.

I've moaned about this on road.cc for years. The site I can live with - stay off cycling sites till the race is over/you've had a chance to watch, though I too would still prefer they hide it till after the link. It's the posting the result on Facebook that I think is really bad practice. Hide the result till after the link. Makes better business sense too - drives page clicks onto your site rather than getting the result from the Facebook page and not clicking the link.

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giobox | 9 years ago
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Marcel Kittel must be over the moon with the roster for this year's Giro, especially with Cav over in California right now. Realistically there's no one who can match him in a sprint finish this year.

Great showing from Sky today, would have loved for someone to have beaten the favourite, but the outcome seemed little in doubt.

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